Have you ever had a bunch of leftover roasted chicken and you didn’t know what to do with it? Well get ready because today we are going to look at a wonderful recipe for Roasted Chicken Soup. I know what you’re thinking, chicken soup, in the summertime? What gives! I have to say I would normally agree with you but this recipe is so good that I didn’t care that I was practically sweating while eating it. Just crank up the air conditioning, plop yourself under a blanket, and you’ll be wishing it was Christmas. Ok, let’s not get ahead of ourselves, we can’t skip my favorite season, autumn :)

Anyway, I was hesitant to make the soup but Joe has been bugging me for WEEKS about making soup. He will always mention it offhand saying “Oh, maybe, if you feel like it, you know, you could make soup for dinner.” The guy loves soup almost as much as he loves me (or at least I hope it’s almost as much!). I would imagine his order of priority goes a little something like this: 1) Family, 2) Friends, 3) Soup. Since we had so much leftover chicken from a roasted chicken we bought from Sam’s Club, I had to finally give in to his desires for soup. And let me tell you, I’m glad I did.

Now, you don’t have to use roasted chicken for this recipe. You could really use any chicken you have but I would say the roasted chicken gives the soup a whole lot of flavor. You’ll be using kale, carrots, celery, garlic, ginger, onion, and my person favorite, sweet potato! I know that sweet potato isn’t typically an ingredient included in chicken soup, but let me tell you, it’s amazing. We’re trying to stay away from different ingredients that include gluten in our home so by adding sweet potato, we didn’t even miss the noodles!

Start out by prepping your vegetables. Dice the onion into ½ inch squares, slice the celery into ½ inch slices, and chop the sweet potato into ½ inch to 1 inch cubes. Then, finely mince your garlic and ginger. Add the onions and celery to a large pot with 1 tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil over medium heat. Whenever I’m making a soup, stew, or chili I always use my cast iron pot but you can use any large pot you have. Cook until the onions become translucent. Add the garlic and ginger and sauté for a few minutes until fragrant.

Add the chicken broth, carrots, sweet potatoes and roasted chicken to the pot and bring to a boil. Lower to a simmer and cook for 15 minutes. Then, add the kale (stems removed) to the pot, stir, and then cover and cook for an additional 10 minutes. There you have it! Now go cook a chicken so that you’ll have leftovers to make this soup. From the Sans’ kitchen to yours, salute!